Piano Illiterature - Volume 3:
2004.07.16 Persisting Resisting - 7:23 - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE & Michael Pestel
Michael Pestel is one of my oldest & most continual collaborators in Pittsburgh. This despite his having moved to Middletown, CT, around 2004. We met in 1997, a little over a year after I moved to Pittsburgh & we almost immediately started working on projects together. In 2004 I visited him in Middletown & I conceived of the 2nd of what I've come to call the "Systems Management" systems - the 1st of which, "Red Room", had been conceived of on a visit to Baltimore in 1997.
The instruction for this, as articulated in the HiTEC "Systems Management" score is: "Play in accordance w/ a system w/o telling the other player(s) what the system is. If you make a mistake, either stop playing & stay stopped until everyone else is done OR play according to a 2nd system for a 'satisfactory' length of time. What constitutes 'satisfactory' is determined by yr own criteria. Then return to the 1st system UNLESS you make a mistake during the 2nd system in wch case a 3rd system is to be followed for a 'satisfactory' length of time - after wch the 2nd system is reverted to UNLESS.. etc, etc.. From each system one either moves one system forward or one backward. If a player thinks another player has stopped they can end but they cannot restart (even if they're wrong about the other player stopping)."
2005.02.27 Nothing of Note #2 - 4:55 - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
On "Piano Iliterature - Volume Two", I present "Cycling thru the Circle #05" - wch was recorded in the Andy Warhol Museum Theater, where I sometimes work, on a Steinway grand piano, w/ no audience. The "Nothing of Note" series was recorded under similar circumstances. Unlike the "Cycling.." series there was no central idea. W/ this in mind, I called the improvs "Nothing of Note" as both a pun off the lack of idea(s) &, of course, of the double meaning of "note" as in "noteworthy" & "note" as in "pitch".
2007.11.27 Wandering Mind #7 - 3:01 - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
As noted elsewhere In Piano Illiterature notes, I hated taking piano lessons as a kid (sometime between 1959, 1960, or 1961 & 1963 or 1964) & learned next to nothing from them - barely learning to read conventional notation.
Instead, I didn't develop an enthusiasm for music until I started listening to the Rolling Stones in 1967; The Beatles, Cream, Moby Grape, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, & The Soft Machine in 1968; Country Joe and the Fish, & Jefferson Airplane in 1969; & The Mothers of Invention, Arthur Brown, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, & classical music in 1970; etc.. Given that I was an adolescent at the time, it's pretty easy to connect all this to developing sexuality.
In my mom's house where I spent most of my life from ages 3 to 22 there was a piano. When she moved out of the house in 2007 I inherited it - a 50+ yr old Wurlitzer upright in perfect condition. SO, I started playing regularly again - wch means I started trying to relearn conventional notation.
Given that my musical fervor blossomed most seriously under the influence of musique concrete, electronic music, improvising, & graphic notation, etc, I was seriously LOUSY at relearning a notation I barely knew in the 1st place. As for reading it in real time? Forget it.
As such, my attempts at playing a boogie-woogie piece called "Cool Mule", Beethoven's (so-called) "Moonlight Sonata", John Cage's "Dream", Erik Satie's "Premier Gymnopedie", Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", Frank Zappa, & George Antheil's "Little Shimmy" weren't totally failures but were hardly resounding successes.
Such practicing often deteriorated into my noodling (& I HATE noodling) whenever I stopped concentrating &/or made a mistake. Hence the "Wandering Mind" series in wch I gave in to this undisciplined habit. I chose #7 for here b/c it fleetingly goes thru most of the pieces I was trying to learn at the time.
2008.07b Penultimate Piano Improv (Piano While Drunk) - 2:58 - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
Once I had a piano at home, I started playing alot more often - both while sober & while drunk. I kept 2 mini-dv tapes near the piano: one marked "Piano While Sober" & one marked "Piano While Drunk". The idea was to vaudeo both & to compare the relative merits of the playing. This fell by the wayside when I started the HiTEC project & started playing in a more disciplined manner for that.
It wasn't until 2011 that I checked out the tapes to find if there was anything usable on them for these new volumes of "Piano Illiterature". To my surprise, there was NOTHING on the "Sober" tape & very little on the "Drunk" one. This had as much to do w/ the use of defective equipment as w/ the frequency of playing in one state or the other.
2008.08.11 Cheaper Imitation - 3:03 - HiTEC 009 (Group A)
The 1st rehearsal of HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) [not initially known as such] was on July 14, 2008. This quickly grew into a very ambitious orchestra project that had 40 participants over the next 20 mnths. For "Piano Illiterature" volumes 3 & 4, I picked some of my 'best' HiTEC piano playing. 'Best' is in single quotes b/c my piano playing is only 'good' in the sense that I play something that I like listening to every so often in spite of my extreme lack of technical facility.
Here HiTEC rehearsal 9 group A consisted of myself (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) on piano (& electric guitar w/ wah-wah, sampler, wave-table synthesizer, & percusssion), Johan Nystrom on percussion, Hyla Willis on erhu & Jamaican bean, Ben Harris on violin, David Bernabo on acoustic guitar, Kerrith Livengood on flute, & Andrew "The Impaled" Laswell on vibres (& piano).
We're playing Ben Opie's "Cheaper Imitation":
"Each player may imitate another (or not).
"If a player believes they are being successfully imitated, they must either: stop entirely; initiate a new idea; or continue with their current idea, but in a way that can no longer be successfully imitated.
"EG: If Player 1 chooses to play 1 note repeatedly instead of imitating another player & Player 2 then imitates that by playing 1 note repeatedly then Player 1 must decide if the imitation is successful. That brings up issues like: Is it necessary for Player 2 to be playing the exact same pitch in order for the imitation to be successful? Or is just repeating any sound all that's needed? If Player 1 decides that the imitation IS successful then they follow the above instruction. If Player 1 decides that the imitation is NOT successful then they continue as before. That challenges the imitator to hone their imitation skills.
"If a player believes the person they are imitating has changed direction because of the imitation, that player must stop, initiate a new idea, or find another person to imitate.
"An easy example of playing "in a way that can no longer be successfully imitated" might be playing outside the technical range of the imitator's instrument - such as outside their pitch range or note-bending abilities. This is somewhat beside the point though given that the imitator will presumably notice any change in what the player they're copying is doing &, hence, cease imitating them regardless of whether they can be "successfully imitated" or not.
"If a player initiates an idea and nobody chooses to imitate them (w/in a subjectively chosen time restriction such as by thinking something like "Hey! I've been doing this too long & as far as I can tell no-one's imitating me!"), they must either continue with that idea until somebody does imitate them, or stop (at which time they are done for the rest of this system)."
2008.08.18 SM 1,5,1,15,2,3 - 9:53 - HiTEC 012 (Group B)
HiTEC rehearsal 12 group B consisted of myself (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) on piano (& guitar w/ f/x, sampler, & DX27S), Spat Cannon on vibres, Tracy Mortimore on bass (& piano), & Roger Dannenberg on trumpet. The "SM 1,5,1,15,2,3" title indicates that the "Systems Management" Systems the numbers for wch are listed are being Managed in the sequence that they're listed. That means "Red Room" followed by "Birds" followed by "Red Room" again followed by "Avian Flu" followed by "Persisting Resisting", & "Octave Butler". People interested in understanding this further are suggested to buy the very rare, ridiculously cheap, & fantastically produced "HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) "Systems Management"" CD/book/DVD (For a copy of this HiTEC publication from Encyclopedia Destructica, go to:
http://www.encyclopediadestructica.com/Destructica.html & click on "volumes & issues" & then click on "HiTEC").
2008.08.25 SM14+2: Echo + Persisting - 5:00 - HiTEC 015 (Group A)
HiTEC rehearsal 15 group A (again) consisted of myself (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) on piano, Hyla Willis on erhu (& toy ratchet & siren whistle), Ben Harris on violin, David Bernabo on guitars (acoustic & electric lap), Kerrith Livengood on flute, Jonathan Brodsky on monome, Julian Krishnamurti on electric bass, & Joy on Erector Set.
The Systems presented here are "Echo":
"Whoever the 1st player is after 14 appears performs a short figure & stops & is then echoed by everyone else as if they're little more than an echo effect - w/ their repetition gradually fading out. Player 1 can only resume near the end of the last fade-out - once again only performing a short figure. This is a meta-system insofar as once this system is initiated, one of the echoers can choose to interpolate an echo into any system ONE TIME ONLY PER SYSTEM & always echoing the same player. If an echoer does this & the person echoed notices then that player 1 stops. Hopefully, all other players will then also take up the echo & gradually fade out until near-silence is achieved - at wch point the interrupted system resumes."
& the afore-described "Persisting Resisting". I find it worth noting here that "Echo" was NEVER performed properly & that this particular realization of it is probably better than most.
2008.09.14 Persisting Resisting - 1:41 - HiTEC 021 ('FULL' GROUP)
This is from the 1st 'full group' rehearsal of HiTEC where most of the members were able to get together at the same time. For an explanation of the System being Managed see the notes to track 01 here.
The Systems Managers:
Ilona Auth: tap dancing, WoF spinning
Ben Opie: alto sax, thingamagoop
Kerrith Livengood: flute
Ben Harris: violin
David Bernabo: acoustic guitar
Johan Nystrom: percussion
William Wedler: percussion
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: grand piano, percussion
Unfinished Symphonies: electronic keyboard
Joy: acoustic guitar
Erok: trombone
Jonathan Brodsky: monome (monome.org) with mabalhabla software
Kenny Haney: bass clarinet
James Gyre: darbouka, flute, bicycle
Hyla Willis: erhu, small noisemaker
Tony Balko: 16mm camera
For Tony Balko's 16mm footage of HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) 's beginning of our 21st rehearsal on September 14, 2008EV (that includes this selection):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0thj_1lWlA
2008.10.16 Personality Types - 4:55 - HiTEC 030 (Group C)
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano, percussion, vibres
James Gyre: percussion
Kenny Haney: bass clarinet, piano
Roger Dannenberg: trumpet
Julian Krishnamurti: electric bass, percussion
"Personality Types 2"
(Myers-Briggs / tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE / each Systems Manager):
Begin by playing in yr own "Personality Type". Self-consciously structure yr playing around that type while thinking that it might be healthy for you to try one of the other types. Eventually switch to the other when a conductor makes a sweeping gesture meant to designate change."
I'm not actually sure whether we were rehearsing the 1st or 2nd version of "Personality Types" here. Again, for more detail, interested parties are directed to the "HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) "Systems Management"" CD/book/DVD.
2008.10.20 Escape Tunnel - 5:03 - HiTEC 032 (Group A)
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano, percussion, voice
Johan Nystrom: percussion
Ben Harris: violin
David Bernabo: acoustic guitar
Kerrith Livengood: alto flute
Jonathan Brodsky: monome (monome.org) with mabalhabla software
Erok: trombone
"Escape Tunnel" (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE & Kenny Haney):
When 24 appears on the WoF, try to act in total SOLIDARITY to escape from the system. EG: everyone narrows down their playing field to be absolutely in unison. Until every Systems Manager reaches some form of unspoken consensus that SOLIDARITY has been reached & the escape tunnel has been collectively dug, there is NO ESCAPE from this system - except, perhaps, thru the intrusion of the DICTATOR.
2008.11.13 Systems Management 0-32 (pt 1) - 8:30 - HiTEC 038 (Group C)
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano, percussion
Kenny Haney: bass clarinet, balloons
Ben Opie: Bb clarinet, thingamagoop (from kit)
Tony Balko: SM camcorder
Julian Krishnamurti: electric bass
Unfinished Symphonies: electronic keyboard
Melissa St. Pierre: spinner
2008.11.17a Personality Types 2 - 2:25 - HiTEC 040 (Group A)
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano
Johan Nystrom: balloons, vibres
Hyla Willis: erhu, Jamaican bean, small noisemaker
Jonathan Brodsky: monome with mabalhabla software, electric guitar
2008.11.17b Comfort Zone 3 - 5:19 - HiTEC 040 (Group A)
[See personnel data above]
"Comfort Zone 3" (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE & James Gyre):
Free improvise in a sensitive manner that makes you feel like you're 'playing w/' yr fellow Systems Managers. At a dramatic & obvious signal from a self-appointed conductor, play a solo piece that was influential on yr development. At a 2nd signal from the same conductor, play fragments of the same solo in an attempt to create a Klangfarbenmedlodie montage of influences w/ the other Managers.
2011.01.08 Improvisation - 11:35 - Michael Pestel & tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
Ending volume 3 is a recent improvisation w/ Michael Pestel - creating an obvious circular sort of structure to this collection. Michael was visiting Pittsburgh & we had a chance to quickly get together for playing. My piano playing, though still 'bad', had improved enormously since I had last played piano w/ Michael many yrs before.
During the overall session that this is excerpted from, Michael played concert flute (w/ occasional stunted head joint), alto flute, piano, SonLuminous (August 11, 2010: I premier the "Sonluminous" - a lighting frame I built around a sound sculpture that'd been given to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAnnNd4qyxY), various bird calls, harmonica (in C), square bass recorder (in F), slide whistle, voice (modified Mongolian throat singing), & colander. I (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) played Erector Set, DX27S, sampler, K1m, & electric guitar in addition to piano.
- July 18, 2011 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
2004.07.16 Persisting Resisting - 7:23 - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE & Michael Pestel
Michael Pestel is one of my oldest & most continual collaborators in Pittsburgh. This despite his having moved to Middletown, CT, around 2004. We met in 1997, a little over a year after I moved to Pittsburgh & we almost immediately started working on projects together. In 2004 I visited him in Middletown & I conceived of the 2nd of what I've come to call the "Systems Management" systems - the 1st of which, "Red Room", had been conceived of on a visit to Baltimore in 1997.
The instruction for this, as articulated in the HiTEC "Systems Management" score is: "Play in accordance w/ a system w/o telling the other player(s) what the system is. If you make a mistake, either stop playing & stay stopped until everyone else is done OR play according to a 2nd system for a 'satisfactory' length of time. What constitutes 'satisfactory' is determined by yr own criteria. Then return to the 1st system UNLESS you make a mistake during the 2nd system in wch case a 3rd system is to be followed for a 'satisfactory' length of time - after wch the 2nd system is reverted to UNLESS.. etc, etc.. From each system one either moves one system forward or one backward. If a player thinks another player has stopped they can end but they cannot restart (even if they're wrong about the other player stopping)."
2005.02.27 Nothing of Note #2 - 4:55 - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
On "Piano Iliterature - Volume Two", I present "Cycling thru the Circle #05" - wch was recorded in the Andy Warhol Museum Theater, where I sometimes work, on a Steinway grand piano, w/ no audience. The "Nothing of Note" series was recorded under similar circumstances. Unlike the "Cycling.." series there was no central idea. W/ this in mind, I called the improvs "Nothing of Note" as both a pun off the lack of idea(s) &, of course, of the double meaning of "note" as in "noteworthy" & "note" as in "pitch".
2007.11.27 Wandering Mind #7 - 3:01 - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
As noted elsewhere In Piano Illiterature notes, I hated taking piano lessons as a kid (sometime between 1959, 1960, or 1961 & 1963 or 1964) & learned next to nothing from them - barely learning to read conventional notation.
Instead, I didn't develop an enthusiasm for music until I started listening to the Rolling Stones in 1967; The Beatles, Cream, Moby Grape, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, & The Soft Machine in 1968; Country Joe and the Fish, & Jefferson Airplane in 1969; & The Mothers of Invention, Arthur Brown, Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band, & classical music in 1970; etc.. Given that I was an adolescent at the time, it's pretty easy to connect all this to developing sexuality.
In my mom's house where I spent most of my life from ages 3 to 22 there was a piano. When she moved out of the house in 2007 I inherited it - a 50+ yr old Wurlitzer upright in perfect condition. SO, I started playing regularly again - wch means I started trying to relearn conventional notation.
Given that my musical fervor blossomed most seriously under the influence of musique concrete, electronic music, improvising, & graphic notation, etc, I was seriously LOUSY at relearning a notation I barely knew in the 1st place. As for reading it in real time? Forget it.
As such, my attempts at playing a boogie-woogie piece called "Cool Mule", Beethoven's (so-called) "Moonlight Sonata", John Cage's "Dream", Erik Satie's "Premier Gymnopedie", Tchaikovsky's "Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy", Frank Zappa, & George Antheil's "Little Shimmy" weren't totally failures but were hardly resounding successes.
Such practicing often deteriorated into my noodling (& I HATE noodling) whenever I stopped concentrating &/or made a mistake. Hence the "Wandering Mind" series in wch I gave in to this undisciplined habit. I chose #7 for here b/c it fleetingly goes thru most of the pieces I was trying to learn at the time.
2008.07b Penultimate Piano Improv (Piano While Drunk) - 2:58 - tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
Once I had a piano at home, I started playing alot more often - both while sober & while drunk. I kept 2 mini-dv tapes near the piano: one marked "Piano While Sober" & one marked "Piano While Drunk". The idea was to vaudeo both & to compare the relative merits of the playing. This fell by the wayside when I started the HiTEC project & started playing in a more disciplined manner for that.
It wasn't until 2011 that I checked out the tapes to find if there was anything usable on them for these new volumes of "Piano Illiterature". To my surprise, there was NOTHING on the "Sober" tape & very little on the "Drunk" one. This had as much to do w/ the use of defective equipment as w/ the frequency of playing in one state or the other.
2008.08.11 Cheaper Imitation - 3:03 - HiTEC 009 (Group A)
The 1st rehearsal of HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) [not initially known as such] was on July 14, 2008. This quickly grew into a very ambitious orchestra project that had 40 participants over the next 20 mnths. For "Piano Illiterature" volumes 3 & 4, I picked some of my 'best' HiTEC piano playing. 'Best' is in single quotes b/c my piano playing is only 'good' in the sense that I play something that I like listening to every so often in spite of my extreme lack of technical facility.
Here HiTEC rehearsal 9 group A consisted of myself (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) on piano (& electric guitar w/ wah-wah, sampler, wave-table synthesizer, & percusssion), Johan Nystrom on percussion, Hyla Willis on erhu & Jamaican bean, Ben Harris on violin, David Bernabo on acoustic guitar, Kerrith Livengood on flute, & Andrew "The Impaled" Laswell on vibres (& piano).
We're playing Ben Opie's "Cheaper Imitation":
"Each player may imitate another (or not).
"If a player believes they are being successfully imitated, they must either: stop entirely; initiate a new idea; or continue with their current idea, but in a way that can no longer be successfully imitated.
"EG: If Player 1 chooses to play 1 note repeatedly instead of imitating another player & Player 2 then imitates that by playing 1 note repeatedly then Player 1 must decide if the imitation is successful. That brings up issues like: Is it necessary for Player 2 to be playing the exact same pitch in order for the imitation to be successful? Or is just repeating any sound all that's needed? If Player 1 decides that the imitation IS successful then they follow the above instruction. If Player 1 decides that the imitation is NOT successful then they continue as before. That challenges the imitator to hone their imitation skills.
"If a player believes the person they are imitating has changed direction because of the imitation, that player must stop, initiate a new idea, or find another person to imitate.
"An easy example of playing "in a way that can no longer be successfully imitated" might be playing outside the technical range of the imitator's instrument - such as outside their pitch range or note-bending abilities. This is somewhat beside the point though given that the imitator will presumably notice any change in what the player they're copying is doing &, hence, cease imitating them regardless of whether they can be "successfully imitated" or not.
"If a player initiates an idea and nobody chooses to imitate them (w/in a subjectively chosen time restriction such as by thinking something like "Hey! I've been doing this too long & as far as I can tell no-one's imitating me!"), they must either continue with that idea until somebody does imitate them, or stop (at which time they are done for the rest of this system)."
2008.08.18 SM 1,5,1,15,2,3 - 9:53 - HiTEC 012 (Group B)
HiTEC rehearsal 12 group B consisted of myself (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) on piano (& guitar w/ f/x, sampler, & DX27S), Spat Cannon on vibres, Tracy Mortimore on bass (& piano), & Roger Dannenberg on trumpet. The "SM 1,5,1,15,2,3" title indicates that the "Systems Management" Systems the numbers for wch are listed are being Managed in the sequence that they're listed. That means "Red Room" followed by "Birds" followed by "Red Room" again followed by "Avian Flu" followed by "Persisting Resisting", & "Octave Butler". People interested in understanding this further are suggested to buy the very rare, ridiculously cheap, & fantastically produced "HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) "Systems Management"" CD/book/DVD (For a copy of this HiTEC publication from Encyclopedia Destructica, go to:
http://www.encyclopediadestructica.com/Destructica.html & click on "volumes & issues" & then click on "HiTEC").
2008.08.25 SM14+2: Echo + Persisting - 5:00 - HiTEC 015 (Group A)
HiTEC rehearsal 15 group A (again) consisted of myself (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) on piano, Hyla Willis on erhu (& toy ratchet & siren whistle), Ben Harris on violin, David Bernabo on guitars (acoustic & electric lap), Kerrith Livengood on flute, Jonathan Brodsky on monome, Julian Krishnamurti on electric bass, & Joy on Erector Set.
The Systems presented here are "Echo":
"Whoever the 1st player is after 14 appears performs a short figure & stops & is then echoed by everyone else as if they're little more than an echo effect - w/ their repetition gradually fading out. Player 1 can only resume near the end of the last fade-out - once again only performing a short figure. This is a meta-system insofar as once this system is initiated, one of the echoers can choose to interpolate an echo into any system ONE TIME ONLY PER SYSTEM & always echoing the same player. If an echoer does this & the person echoed notices then that player 1 stops. Hopefully, all other players will then also take up the echo & gradually fade out until near-silence is achieved - at wch point the interrupted system resumes."
& the afore-described "Persisting Resisting". I find it worth noting here that "Echo" was NEVER performed properly & that this particular realization of it is probably better than most.
2008.09.14 Persisting Resisting - 1:41 - HiTEC 021 ('FULL' GROUP)
This is from the 1st 'full group' rehearsal of HiTEC where most of the members were able to get together at the same time. For an explanation of the System being Managed see the notes to track 01 here.
The Systems Managers:
Ilona Auth: tap dancing, WoF spinning
Ben Opie: alto sax, thingamagoop
Kerrith Livengood: flute
Ben Harris: violin
David Bernabo: acoustic guitar
Johan Nystrom: percussion
William Wedler: percussion
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: grand piano, percussion
Unfinished Symphonies: electronic keyboard
Joy: acoustic guitar
Erok: trombone
Jonathan Brodsky: monome (monome.org) with mabalhabla software
Kenny Haney: bass clarinet
James Gyre: darbouka, flute, bicycle
Hyla Willis: erhu, small noisemaker
Tony Balko: 16mm camera
For Tony Balko's 16mm footage of HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) 's beginning of our 21st rehearsal on September 14, 2008EV (that includes this selection):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e0thj_1lWlA
2008.10.16 Personality Types - 4:55 - HiTEC 030 (Group C)
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano, percussion, vibres
James Gyre: percussion
Kenny Haney: bass clarinet, piano
Roger Dannenberg: trumpet
Julian Krishnamurti: electric bass, percussion
"Personality Types 2"
(Myers-Briggs / tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE / each Systems Manager):
Begin by playing in yr own "Personality Type". Self-consciously structure yr playing around that type while thinking that it might be healthy for you to try one of the other types. Eventually switch to the other when a conductor makes a sweeping gesture meant to designate change."
I'm not actually sure whether we were rehearsing the 1st or 2nd version of "Personality Types" here. Again, for more detail, interested parties are directed to the "HiTEC (Histrionic Thought Experiment Cooperative) "Systems Management"" CD/book/DVD.
2008.10.20 Escape Tunnel - 5:03 - HiTEC 032 (Group A)
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano, percussion, voice
Johan Nystrom: percussion
Ben Harris: violin
David Bernabo: acoustic guitar
Kerrith Livengood: alto flute
Jonathan Brodsky: monome (monome.org) with mabalhabla software
Erok: trombone
"Escape Tunnel" (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE & Kenny Haney):
When 24 appears on the WoF, try to act in total SOLIDARITY to escape from the system. EG: everyone narrows down their playing field to be absolutely in unison. Until every Systems Manager reaches some form of unspoken consensus that SOLIDARITY has been reached & the escape tunnel has been collectively dug, there is NO ESCAPE from this system - except, perhaps, thru the intrusion of the DICTATOR.
2008.11.13 Systems Management 0-32 (pt 1) - 8:30 - HiTEC 038 (Group C)
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano, percussion
Kenny Haney: bass clarinet, balloons
Ben Opie: Bb clarinet, thingamagoop (from kit)
Tony Balko: SM camcorder
Julian Krishnamurti: electric bass
Unfinished Symphonies: electronic keyboard
Melissa St. Pierre: spinner
2008.11.17a Personality Types 2 - 2:25 - HiTEC 040 (Group A)
tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE: piano
Johan Nystrom: balloons, vibres
Hyla Willis: erhu, Jamaican bean, small noisemaker
Jonathan Brodsky: monome with mabalhabla software, electric guitar
2008.11.17b Comfort Zone 3 - 5:19 - HiTEC 040 (Group A)
[See personnel data above]
"Comfort Zone 3" (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE & James Gyre):
Free improvise in a sensitive manner that makes you feel like you're 'playing w/' yr fellow Systems Managers. At a dramatic & obvious signal from a self-appointed conductor, play a solo piece that was influential on yr development. At a 2nd signal from the same conductor, play fragments of the same solo in an attempt to create a Klangfarbenmedlodie montage of influences w/ the other Managers.
2011.01.08 Improvisation - 11:35 - Michael Pestel & tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
Ending volume 3 is a recent improvisation w/ Michael Pestel - creating an obvious circular sort of structure to this collection. Michael was visiting Pittsburgh & we had a chance to quickly get together for playing. My piano playing, though still 'bad', had improved enormously since I had last played piano w/ Michael many yrs before.
During the overall session that this is excerpted from, Michael played concert flute (w/ occasional stunted head joint), alto flute, piano, SonLuminous (August 11, 2010: I premier the "Sonluminous" - a lighting frame I built around a sound sculpture that'd been given to me:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nAnnNd4qyxY), various bird calls, harmonica (in C), square bass recorder (in F), slide whistle, voice (modified Mongolian throat singing), & colander. I (tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE) played Erector Set, DX27S, sampler, K1m, & electric guitar in addition to piano.
- July 18, 2011 notes from tENTATIVELY, a cONVENIENCE
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